Sermon notes

INTRODUCTION

A delegation of Pharisees and scribes comes from Jerusalem to interrogate Jesus about His conformity to tradition. Jesus turns the tables and interrogates them about their conformity to God’s commandments.

THE TEXT

“Then the scribes and Pharisees who were from Jerusalem came to Jesus, saying, ‘ Why do Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.’ . . . (Matthew 15:1-20).

WASHING AND HONORING PARENTS

According to the law, washing removed defilements that would otherwise be passed by touch (e.g., Exodus 30:17-21; Leviticus 15:11 ). Though the law never prescribes hand-washing before meals, the Pharisees concluded that it was safer to wash than to risk unwitting defilement. Jesus doesn’t answer their question, but instead charges them with nullifying God’s law with their own tradition. Instead of using their savings to honor their parents, as the law requires (v. 4; cf. Exodus 20:12 ; 21:17 ), they devote those savings to God. It looks pious, but it’s disobedience. In the very act of “worshiping” God with their offering, they are flouting His commandments. They pay lip-worship, but their hearts are fare from God. True worship is obedience to God’s commands.

MOUTH AND HEART

After turning the interrogation back on the Pharisees, Jesus answers their question: No one is defiled by eating with unwashed hands (vv. 10-11, 20). Jesus could have made this point simply by pointing out that the law doesn’t require washing before meals. Instead, he makes a much larger and broader point. Under the law, Israel was to maintain purity regulations, but these were intended as object-lessons about true purity. Jesus claims that nothing that comes into the mouth defiles, because it simply passes through the intestines and doesn’t touch the heart (vv. 17-18). What defiles are evils that come from within (v. 19). In one sense, this is precisely what the purity laws taught, since most forms of uncleanness results from emissions from inside the body (Leviticus 12; 15). Jesus deepens the point by saying that defilement comes from the murderous and adulterous and false thoughts, words, and actions that arise from the heart. The Pharisees, in fact, are guilty of every evil that Jesus describes here (9:4, 34; 12:7, 38; 26:60-61). They think of themselves as the pure ones; in reality, they are deeply polluted.

UPROOTED PLANTS

In explaining His teaching to the disciples, Jesus comments briefly on the Pharisees. They are not planted by the Father (v. 13), and therefore are sons of the evil one, who sowed Israel with weeds ( 13:36 -43). As Jesus explained in the parable of the tares and wheat, the Lord will root up the weeds, and the disciples are called to “let them alone” (v. 14) until the Father roots them out. Though they think of themselves as “guides to the blind” (cf. Romans 2:19 ), they are blind guides and will inevitably mislead.